Not long ago, we had the opportunity to visit the production facility of the AGR holding company in the Kaluga region, in Grabstevo. By and large, the new site in Shushary is very similar to what we have already seen: a full production cycle, including welding, assembly, and painting, a huge number of robots, strict control at every stage... But the site in Shushary, where the Jeland J6 and Jeland J7 crossovers are currently being produced (the model range will expand in the near future, but more on that below), has some distinctive features. Generally speaking, they are pleasant ones. Let's take a look at what and how it works here, and what to expect from the plant in the future.
It's no secret that the plant was not built from scratch: previously, companies that later decided to leave Russia operated on this site near St. Petersburg. But this doesn't mean the new owners got a production-ready facility. The fact is that some gentlemen were in such a hurry to leave their established location that when dismantling their equipment, they tore it out along with the floor in some rooms. And by and large, the holding company only got the roof and walls – even the floor was missing in places, let alone the machinery. However, along with this, they also got a very advantageous location from a logistics standpoint: the highway connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg runs nearby, as does the railway, and even Pulkovo Airport is close. And sea deliveries haven't been canceled either: there is a port nearby. All of this is very convenient, as the plant requires about 1,100 parts daily to produce one car, and with its capacity of 100,000 cars per year, it's easy to imagine the required volume of transportation.
The second advantage of the location is the ability not to limit oneself in terms of production area. Here, the building area alone is 128,000 square meters, and the entire territory is over 6,000 hectares. This made it possible to organize not only car production but also storage of finished products for 5,000 parking spaces.
It should be noted that, in essence, the construction and launch of the new production were carried out in a very tight timeframe: direct construction began in May 2025, from June of the same year to January 2026, they were engaged in the supply, installation, and commissioning of equipment, and already in April, they produced the first car and began full-cycle production of the Jeland J6 crossover. Currently, 2,500 employees work at the plant, who are already ready for the production of two more models: the Jeland J7 and J8. By the way, another pleasant feature of the site in Shushary is related to the fact that at one time, GM, Ford, Nissan, and Hyundai plants operated in St. Petersburg. This means that there are enough people with experience in this field in the Northern capital to quickly assemble a team of specialists in any area. So, let's see how this team works at the new AGR holding site in Shushary.
We start not from the very beginning of production, not from welding, but from the assembly shop. There's probably no point in saying that it doesn't resemble a gloomy workshop from horror movies, which even Schwarzenegger's Terminator somehow couldn't survive: it's clean, very bright, and even somehow unusually cheerful. By the way, some equipment remained here, but it was dismantled, so now everything in this shop is also new. "New" means five conveyor lines with 88 workstations, dozens of manipulators, and robotic complexes. And this is also perhaps the most crowded shop: despite the abundance of machinery, manual labor is used quite intensively here. But this is not due to a shortage of any robots, but in accordance with the accepted norms of any automotive production: there are operations that are more economically advantageous to perform by hand. However, at the same time, almost three dozen robotic carts (also known as AGVs, Autonomous Guided Vehicles) run along the shop floors, so nothing has to be carried from the warehouse manually. And all components arrive at the workstations just in time and exactly those required at a specific moment. Naturally, not just one model, but several can be assembled here.
I note that installing the engine, transmission, assembling the interior, gluing windows, mounting the fuel system, programming, and everything else into the body that arrived from the paint shop is far from everything. In this shop, a lot of time is devoted to quality control, which the car moving along the conveyor line undergoes after each assembly stage. Moreover, not only the tightening torque of threaded connections is checked, but also all the electronic components and systems, of which there are a huge number in a modern car. In fact, at the exit, each car undergoes a full computer diagnostic, and after that, it is also sent for a road test (of course, after checking on a roller dynamometer). As they say here, the most important thing in this shop only begins after assembly: checks, tests, and diagnostics.
Now let's look into the welding shop. There are almost no people here: 122 robots perform almost all the work. Errors due to the human factor are completely eliminated, which, however, does not cancel out inspections here either. And a lot needs to be controlled. Despite the fact that both spot welding and seam welding in an inert gas environment are robotized, and the application of sealant to body elements is done by automata, this shop makes extensive use of a machine vision system. Its cameras check whether the sealant is applied correctly, and the geometry of the finished body before painting is also checked on a coordinate measuring machine. To be honest, there is nothing unusual about this: it is a normal production organization adopted at any modern automobile plant. True, there is a key word here – "modern."
It's a pity we weren't allowed into the paint shop: there are increased cleanliness requirements, so it's difficult to get in. But they showed us a video of the process, so we'll say a few words about how the new cars are painted.
They are also painted by robots, of which there are 34 in the paint shop. However, before covering the body with paint and varnish, it must first be prepared. And since we live in Russia, great attention is paid to anti-corrosion treatment. After the welded body is washed and degreased, it is sent for a dip in cataphoresis baths. This is done with full immersion to ensure that all hidden cavities are treated as thoroughly as possible. Then the body is dried (the cataphoresis coating must polymerize), checked to see if everything turned out correctly, and additional sealant is applied where needed. The hidden cavities are also treated with wax. After this, the body is sent to the painting booth, where the base coat and top coat are applied. An interesting detail: the shop uses a "wet-on-wet" technology, meaning intermediate drying between the application of these coatings is not required. This significantly reduces painting time.
The fully painted body is then dried, polished, and the thickness of the paintwork, its adhesion, gloss, roughness, and color rendition are carefully examined. Naturally, during painting, the chemical compositions and paint materials used are constantly monitored, and no deviations in their parameters are allowed. And after all this, the final stage remains: sending the body to assembly, which we have already seen.
As we said at the very beginning, this plant is already fully producing the Jeland J6 crossover, which has already gone on sale. Just the other day, the holding's press service announced the start of production of the mid-size model Jeland J7. Among the upcoming new products, we just have to wait for the start of production of the flagship crossover Jeland J8, but the matter won't be limited to three models. As we were told at the site in Shushary, crossovers of a new line will be produced here in the future, but we won't reveal all the cards yet: when the time comes, we'll tell you about them in detail.
And let's not forget that, despite the organized full-cycle production, work on the localization of cars does not stop. Already now, domestic GLONASS and telematics systems, body electronics control units, fuel tanks, batteries, and exhaust systems are used in them. In the future, depending on the model, our own electronic stability control systems, a locally assembled 1.6-liter engine (with a domestic cylinder block and cylinder head), as well as a steering wheel with an airbag, side airbags, seat belts, and some other elements will appear. One must assume that this manufacturer will stay with us for a long time. Well, let it stay: any production is always a good thing, and the site in Shushary definitely has prospects.
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